[ale] backup a running RH7.2 box

[lyric hartley]

not sure if you would want to go this route but systemimager can use
rsync to image the box to another server with never having to shut it
down....it does an excellent job and you can dig through/modify/chroot
into the image and be able to install it to whatever boxes you
want...but not sure what all of your requirements are
http://www.systemimager.org/
basically you would have to 
install rpms on client and server
run getimage
you will have to open the firewall enough for rsync to do it's thing

brief howto
http://www.falkotimme.com/howtos/systemimager/index.php

it is not hard to setup...nice tool

good luck

On 9/13/05, Michael B. Trausch <fd0man at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sid Lane wrote:
> > all,
> >
> > for reasons I do not which to discuss I have a semi-pressing need to
> > make as close a backup as possible of a running RH7.2 box.  I can
> > shutdown as many services as needed but am somewhat afraid of rebooting
> > (especially spinning down the drives since we have had fairly high
> > failure rate with that model).
> >
> 
> If the second machine is going to have an exactly identical copy of the
> drive, then this will work:
> 
>         - Unmount everything but /, remount / read-only.
>         - On the second machine, use a live distro that has dd and sshd.
>         - On the first machine (the one you want to duplicate), keep
>           sshd running (note, this may require you install ssh on /,
>           depending on your partition layout)
>         - On the second machine, do the following:
> 
>          # ssh first-machine 'dd if=/dev/name-of-entire-device' | \
>            dd of=/dev/name-of-entire-device
> 
> It will take a while, but it will work.  I have used it successfully to
> clone drives at work when things break.  :)
> 
>         - Mike
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 
> 
>